Never and Never
by IceraMyst
Summary: After Cloud Strife mysteriously dissapears in a Heartless related attack during his reunion with Aerith and the others, Leon is unwillingly selected to find him again. Will he be able to do so, or will enemies old and new overcome them all? CxL yaoi
1. Smiling At Me

Smiling At Me (Blue Eyes)

There's a new story being told in Never Never Land, by the ones they call the Lost Boys. This story, unlike the others, isn't about mothers or war games or candy. It tells of a boy, more lost than the rest, who showed up after Sora disappeared from our worlds for good.

Apparently, he resembles the Key-bearer, except that his hair lights with the brightest gold and his eyes glow faintly in the dark. They tell this off as a relic of being in Hades' service, and giggle madly as they theorize on how this glow wore off on him, but Yuffie told me long ago that it was Mako, not fire, that brightens his eyes so.

He was a friend of Aerith's and Yuffie's and Cid's, and I had been present at their reunion. I had diverted my attention when he arrived, only thoughts aching for my own friends that I would likely never see again, for although Sora had told me that Selphie still lived, he told me in the same breath how she had died, and unlike the time with the Galbadian missile base, how she wasn't going to be coming back.

So, I wasn't watching when the thud of Yuffie jumping for joy reached my ears, and I ignored Aerith's coarse, disbelieving cry with my usual coldness. When Cid slapped my shoulders in general good-spirits, though, my gaze automatically jumped towards the others and... stopped.

It had never seemed strange to me that, back at Garden, my eyes had more often watched my peers than others of the 'fairer sex'. Irvine's graceful form as he twisted and pouted for girls, and, one memorable time when he winked at me for watching that led to my storming off in a huff, was more appealing than Selphie's too-chipper bounciness, and even Seifer's snarling smirk held further attractiveness than Quistis's curvy length. I certainly related to them more than females, who confused me an unduly amount, and it was, after all, a female who had ultimately betrayed me, although I cringed at thinking of Sis in that way. It was Quistis I had finally told my feelings to—for I truly did feel guilty about many things I did, and my injustice to her nagged at me greatly—and she was surprisingly acceptant and even partially thrilled that I hadn't rejected her through any fault of her own. Quistis did express some skepticism, however, pointing out that I still welcomed Rinoa to my bed every night anyway.

And that was true, in its own way, although sleeping was the usual course of action and not anything else. It was so hard for me to trust that just laying defenseless with someone took huge effort of will, but I deemed it worth it until Rinoa let in the Heartless. I had only time to comment on the apparently new, oddly shaped necklace she was wearing to bed that night before she raised the dagger and brought it down, giving me several new scars which, luckily, were easily hidden by conventional clothing.

Yuffie, with her annoying, relentless asking was the only one to ever pry the story from me, and after dealing with the loathingly sobbing, trembling state I worked myself into, vowed to never, ever betray me, or leave my side for any reason. This often led to a strong wish to strangle her, now and then, but secretly I didn't mind, and her endless prattle drowned out the voices in my own head.

But, the reunion. I saw him then, and the name finally clicked—he was the one Sora had prattled on about, the man from the Coliseum, described as 'wicked cool' and 'so fast, man, he just leapt up and BOOM!' along with a dreamy look that made me wonder if it really was _Kairi_ Sora was looking for, and not his just-as-oft-spoke-about friend Riku.

He _did_ look like Sora, with the slightly feminine touches and gravity defying hair—which didn't strike me as _that_ gravity-defying; I had known Zell, after all—but the aura around him was the oddest mix of my father's and rival's that I didn't know what to make of it. Just from that glance, I could tell he was stoic, cocky, sweet-hearted, and prone to rushing burning buildings but not a stereotypical hero all the same. Despite common rumors, I can read people quite well (reacting to them is a different matter) and I was quite sure that I had never seen anyone like the wiry man, who was holding the happily babbling Aerith a little _too_ tightly. Rage and grief filled me suddenly and I left the room.

Yuffie immediately rushed after the thud of my boots, babbling a thick stream of gargle that seemed to focus on how yes, Aerith _did_ like Cloud, but probably not that much, there was still hope for me, after all she was a goddess or something like that and she probably could have found Cloud if she really wanted to, but she did stick with me after all, unless I wasn't jealous and merely upset that she was getting a hug, and in that case, did I want a hug, and would I stop walking so fast and glaring like that?

I thought about reassuring her that it wasn't Aerith I was jealous _over,_ for I had seen the thief watching the goddess-in-pink rather often and I knew it would calm her, but there's only so many secrets I can tell a person. Instead, I merely stopped, and nodded, before remembering what she said and being immediately enveloped in an enthusiastic, rather surprised hug. This invoked a sigh and I patted Yuffie's back, causing her even more alarm, but not, I think, unpleasantly. She grinned at me, and then we both had to jump at Aerith's sudden scream and race back to where we had left.

When we arrived, the normally serene girl had obviously just calmed herself from hysterics, and even Cid looked quite pale, muttering things to her too quietly for my ears to catch. They were both staring at a blank spot in the room, which had apparently held a quiet blonde-haired warrior a moment before.

"...what happened?" I asked.

Aerith dried her cheeks before raising her head to look my way. "Cloud... he... the Heartless darkness just sprang up and surrounded him out of nowhere. He just... disappeared!"

Something crashed into our door and we all jerked and turned that way, preparing for the worst. The boy that burst through the doorway was not a foreboding, sweet-natured SOLDIER, however, but the clockmaker's doll, whose name always escapes me.

"Sora's done it!" he cried. "He's sealed the door!" And he was gone again, before he could notice our less-than-cheery states, an insect of some sort with an absurd umbrella following behind him.

The news came as a further strike in the already eventful day and we all stood blankly until even I felt pressed to say something—I didn't, of course, but I was tempted. Finally, the ever impatient Yuffie jumped up and started flinging a throwing star up into the air, catching it as she paced back and forth. I watched it idly; up, down, up, down...

"Okay, then, Cloud's disappearance _has_ to be related. I mean, it's not like people just go away like that every day. 'Cause, I mean, this is _Cloud,_ and he's all important and so on," she said, then snapped her fingers. "I'll bet Sephiroth has something to do with this. Or, or... he worked for Hades. I bet Hades recalled him."

Hades. I had enough problems with sorceresses; gods were not anything I wished to investigate, aside from uttering an occasional curse involving Hyne. Aerith had been very upset when she learned, a few sentences after hearing he was alive, that her beloved spike-haired hero had been employed by the Underworld god. I had never been familiar with the particular deity, but hearing he was Malificent's right-hand immortal, as it were, did not inspire kind thoughts in my mind towards their supposed savior.

But now, having met—well, briefly seen—this Cloud Strife, I truly wondered what he was doing with an agent of darkness. I found it probable that someone had been held captive against him, but when I mentioned the idea to Yuffie later on, she explained in a voice much subdued for her that they were the only survivors, and that Cloud rarely ventured out enough to make friends that quickly that they could be used against him. Apparently others had been used against him before, just as Rinoa had been used as bait for myself.

Hyne. Rinoa.

A few days later found me cleaning Leonhart in the living room—I had taken some pains to explain to Yuffie that the gunblade had been named after me by someone else, but she refused to believe it and teased me mercilessly—when Aerith approached. She took my leather gloved hands in hers, an act which froze me, and begged me with tears in her ocean eyes to find Cloud, or at least word of him. I was so relieved that she hadn't tried to kiss me that I agreed to do so immediately without review. Her thanks were so great and heartfelt that I began to fear that she would kiss me after all, but she remained collected.

And that was how I found myself in a rotted-wood, filth-encased bar, talking to, of all things, a triple-cursed _fairy, _or, rather, to a young woman with brown ringlet hair and a kind expression, who helpfully translated what _glingle-glingle-gling_ actually meant.

"There's a new story being told in Never Never Land," she said earnestly, in an implacable accent from a place that probably existed no longer, "by the children they call the Lost Boys, the ones doomed to never grow up. Or, well, blessed, possibly. They live in _such_ a state, the poor dears, but they seem to enjoy it, although how that is, I couldn't imagine... oh, I'm sorry, Tink. The boys are saying that a man with wild blonde hair, a sword a foot wide, and eyes that glow blue—and actually _glow,_ not simply in the figure of speech, their speech tends to be rather simple, I'm afraid; the only stories they know are the ones they tell themselves—anyway, eyes that glow, is camped out on the banks of the lagoon."

It was possible that some other spiky warrior was being referenced, but it was the first clue I had gotten in a month of searching. The fact I had been searching for a month attested partly to the utterly crushed look in Aerith's eyes when I returned to Traverse yet again without her hero, and partly because there was nothing to do, with the Heartless gone. Even in its tamer times, Garden's training center always survived, but here there was nothing—no enemies to fight, no Coliseum to take the edge off of boredom, not even any wrongdoers to straighten out.

The little voice saying '_and partly because you've never seen anyone as lovely as he is_' I ignored as illogical and unnecessary.

"How do I get to this Never-land place?" I asked, trying to look bored, a feeling that always expressed itself as annoyance on my disgustingly scarred face.

The girl—Wendy—explained, describing a complicated route that involved the ability to fly, which I didn't have, a flying boat, which I didn't have, or a huge amount of belief in childhood and mankind, which I was most certainly lacking in. Finally, after some prodding and a significant amount of putting the girl back on track, Wendy admitted reluctantly that it was fairly easy to get there by Gummy Ship, which I _did_ have access to. Although I preferred the Ragnarok over the graceless block designs Sid admittedly crafted with elegance, my dragon ship was a few destroyed worlds away and effectively out of reach. Thoughts of the Ragnarok led to thoughts of other things—_you trusted her you stupid damned wretch and now you think of trusting again, stupid stupid—_and I found myself ordering perhaps more drinks than was strictly wise at such a dingy bar. I thanked the girl with words and the fairy with munny, and left slightly more unsteady than I had arrived.

Despite my drunkenness, the sounds of swords being drawn behind me snapped me instantly out of my reverie and I had a fira prepared before I even glanced over my shoulder. The first thug received a face-full of fire that left him howling, and the second quickly met his end with a trigger-pull, but it occurred to me shortly that the one I _should_ have been paying attention to was the third brute, who had come up behind me and introduced a dagger hilt to the back of my skull.

As I sunk into darkness, it seemed to me that, despite all, the darkness of Heartless was nothing compared to that of men. And then there was nothing.

-. -. -. -

-. -. -. -

A/N: I came up with this after reading a few too many absolutely awesome Leon/Cloud stories, which I wouldn't have been caught dead reading awhile ago if I hadn't clicked on one by accident. It seemed to me to have turned out pretty good, until I reread it and found it was absolute drivel that was a little telling of not having written so much as a paragraph in about five months, so I typed a page and a half more and hopefully it's at least not horrible now. Thanks for reading; do leave a comment if you will :)


	2. Nothing But Them

Nothing But Them (Blue Eyes)

* * *

When I woke, I had the brief, strange image that I was, for some reason, back at the orphanage. After some moments of pretending sleep while I thought, I decided this was due to the sound of the sea around me; that, and cool darkness wreathed with the scents of cement and wood. The festive background cries quickly placed me away from that memory, though, and I listened for further clues. 

The clash of swords, strong accents shouting intelligible words, a curiously muffled tick-tick that seemed to run the whole works...

Unable to deduct more, I gave up on listening and opened my eyes. A silver-haired boy of about Sora's age was bent over me, bright aqua eyes holding a coldness that so often inhabited my own. His looks seemed oddly familiar, although I knew that I had never met him, and it took only moments to remember.

-. -. -. -

_::Sora was in tears that day, curled up in a ball that even the exuberant Yuffie couldn't talk him out of. It wasn't until she and Aerith had given up and left that he began to talk, which greatly surprised me._

_"I saw Riku, today," he confided in a low voice, so unlike his usual self. "All he talked about was Kairi and how I had betrayed him by siding with Donald and Mickey. Why does he think I betrayed him, Leon? I only wanted to find them again... Riku and Kairi, I mean. That's all I wanted."_

_I watched him for awhile before deciding that he actually wanted a response. It would be so easy to tell him to talk to a more compassionate being, like a wall, but I knew he, like Quistis, would get the wrong impression from that._

_"Some people are funny like that, I guess," I told him. It wasn't very deep and made me sound a bit like a moron, which I hated, but it was also hard to fake truth as well._

_He had looked up and smiled. "It's too bad you didn't see him. Riku's really interesting looking, and not like anyone I've ever met. He's lost some of his tan, probably by hanging around the Heartless all the time—" his eyes dimmed there—"but his skin is still dark enough to make his hair really neat and kind of glow-y, since it's silver. And he's got eyes just about the color of Aerith's, but before I met her, I hadn't seen anyone with eyes like that. It's cool."_

_And yet, I thought, all of this concern for one who's betrayed you... why do you keep trusting, Sora? What's the point? All people are evil. The only one you can trust is yourself, and sometimes, there isn't even that.::_

_-. -. -. -_

I closed my eyes briefly, the rap on the back of my head having turned into a rather violent headache, and when I opened them again, the boy was gone. No one was in the room, and the door was still apparently bolted—_from the inside? What was the point in kidnapping someone and then giving them a door they can lock?—_so he must have left by some other means. Or, perhaps, he had never been there at all. It wouldn't have been the first time I had seen imaginary people upon waking up.

Sitting up, I took quick stock of myself (Clothes? Check. Boots? Present. Sword? Gone. Damn.) and then the room. It was bare, aside from the wooden bunk I had been laying on, and an apparently empty barrel stationed in the corner. The bunk itself was little more than a few boards nailed to the wall, without even a pillow for contrast, a fact which had probably not helped the pounding in my head or, as I moved and discovered, the ache that settled over the rest of my body. Despite soldier training, I could not claim that I had slept in a worse place before: in even the most miserable of conditions, I could use my jacket as padding.

The black leather covering was one of the few items I truly, desperately missed from home, along with the Ragnarok, a well-stocked Training Center, and... and, I stopped thinking.

This was one of the rare times that I truly longed for human company—it silenced the stupid voices rattling in my mind. Before, I could rely on GFs, but they had sacrificed themselves to bring me here. All of them, from the weak-but-willing Carbuncle to my lovely Shiva, were gone. Now the only company I could rely on was the constant prattling of Yuffie—but she wasn't here, and although any other day I would kill myself rather than admit it, I rather missed the constant noise.

It occurred to me at this point that my thoughts did not seem my own. Really, they hadn't since I had first arrived in the marble courts of the Coliseum, where I had been immediately pounced upon by an overactive thief and her pink clothed companion. I could have blamed my new personality on their constant companionship, but I knew the fault lay entirely with me. My policy has always been to internalize all emotions other than stony hostility, but when Rinoa convinced me to be more open to other people, I was forced to review my daily actions. After her subsequent betrayal, I was at a loss as to whether I should keep my new personality or let it go, and ended up with... this: a muddled state that left me with internal monologue and rambling self-introspection.

A sharp thump sounded on the room's wooden door, pulling me away from my thoughts. There was some pounding, and then a curse, presumably as the instigator figured out that I was locking them out instead of being held captive. My jailors seemed to be idiots, and I felt worse than ever at being taken prisoner by them.

"Please let me in!" the cry from outside said. I started, watching the door rather suspiciously, and wondered if this was some kind of mind trick, a test of skill or compassion on my part. Finally, I decided that nothing much could be deduced about me if I merely opened the door, so I did so, carefully balancing my weight against attack and wondering how many seconds I had left to live.

A girl ran in—at least, I supposed the small figure was female, as she was completely wrapped with furs from head to toe. The bottom portion appeared to be a skirt, however, and the way she sat on my wooden bunk with a bit of a flounce also furthered my assumption. When I didn't move, however, she jumped off again and shut the door my hand was still resting on, locking it quickly and giving me a worried look.

"You have to keep the door locked!" she said earnestly, and I could tell from the voice that it was indeed a she. "Can't you hear what's going on out there?"

Indeed, the cries I had taken for revelry seemed to have changed to the victorious shouts and tragic screams of war. The yells made my hand automatically jerk to my empty holster, and I was forced to fight an adrenaline attack when I realized for a second time that the weapon was not there, nor likely to appear from nowhere.

"What is going on out there?" I asked the girl. My voice sounded strange to my own ears, and I thought vaguely that I ought to try this 'talking' thing more often.

"The palace is under attack! I hope my parents are alright," she said, curling up briefly with a pout. Like many of the young children in my experience—very few—she changed mood quickly, however, and smiled up at me. "Where did you get that scar? Aren't you cold in just that shirt? What are those brown strap things on your arm, anyway? Are they weapons? Don't you have a sword or _something?_ I like your hair. What's your name? Mine's Anastasia."

Attempting to keep track of the subject seemed to provide unusual difficulty. With her words, though, I did realize that there was an icy chill seeping in through the white-washed walls. The light blanket draped as mud over the dull colored cot did not appear to be sufficiently warm, and...

A chill that had nothing to do with the snow-and-blood blizzard occurring outside of the door swept through me, leaving blankness in its path. Everything about the room had changed.

Why? And perhaps more importantly, how?

"Are you cold?" the girl asked with another smile, and she held out her mittened hands. "The lady said I should give this to you."

It was my leather jacket, not a fur tuft out of place. Not knowing what to think anymore, I took it from her with steady hands, determined to fall into disorder some other time. There was no mistaking it—the small tell-tale rend was inexpertly stitched in the same place it had been for months, after Rinoa had borrowed it that one night in the park and it had gotten caught on the rosebush by the gate. I realized that I was both rambling internally again in addition to ignoring the world outside of me, a sure sign that things were not going well.

"What lady?"

"The one that was by the door. She said, 'Give the SeeD this memoir and tell him that gardens may indeed grow with a little water and light.' And then she said that you were a seed but that that didn't mean you were a spy, so it was okay."

A year ago I would have been pacing the room in frustration at this point, demanding answers or at least a logical report. Now, however, I was different. I did not immediately race into the hall after strange women that knew too much about me, and nor did I threaten the girl into information.

"Do you remember anything about her?" I asked with far more patience than I felt like displaying. The world was dissolving and I didn't seem to be able to do anything about it—again.

The girl scrunched up her nose in a manner that I suppose was to be regarded as 'cute', and that came off as 'blind'. "She said her words in a kind of funny way. Like 'kastle' and so on."

I gave up on my patience and rationality and stared instead. I had killed Ultimecia myself. There was no doubt that she was dead; Rinoa is... was... proof of that. An obvious answer seemed to be hovering just out of reach, but I've never claimed to have a talented mind. The only thing I was sure of, completely and definitely, was that Ultimecia was not behind this.

When I found myself floating in water beside a boy with a fish tail and fins, I was less certain, and a moment's later dizzying transformation to rainforest arcs and a gold-striped tiger furthered my doubt. Although the time compression for my old friends and I had materialized itself as endless white, I knew that for others, a different exhibit of changing people and places lay in store.

Some of those people had gone mad. I was starting to understand why.

A chocobo on a mountaintop pecked at my hand; three wolves circled me towards a bloodstained tree; an ebony dragon roared its fury through a cage of thorns. As man, beast, and other cycled before me, I realized that they all had a certain kind of expectant surreal-ness around them. All seemed to expect me, none seemed to realize that their worlds were a shifting kaleidoscope cesspool.

Then there, out of nowhere, was Cloud. _He,_ unlike the others, was real, and terrified, and ready to lunge at anything that moved, a state I often felt myself slip into. Not knowing how to stop the constant flow, I grabbed at his wrist, fingers closing around the brown leather there. Those glowing blue eyes widened slightly, a question shaping his lips...

...and then his wrist changed into that of a smiling woman's, dressed in a golden ball gown, and then a ink-spotted Dalmatian's, and then the alarming paw of a lion. I cursed and let go, wondering how I was going to explain to Aerith that I had found her hero and lost him again, and found myself suddenly back in our tiny house, in company with a frigid flower seller and a very stunned looking thief.

The girl in pink turned towards me and gave a small smile, relaxing instantly into her usual mild outlook. "Are you hurt at all, Leon?"

Despite the hysteria the rest of myself was in, a soldier part of me that was always functioning shook my head no.

"I found Cloud, but he disappeared," I told her, voice as off-white blank as it was when I was reporting. "I'm sorry, Aerith."

"Me too! He said that it was just his luck that he would get stuck with me. What does that mean, I'd like to know." Yuffie pouted some half-heartedly, and then bounced over to me, eyes sad. I know that she was going to start apologizing about how she wasn't there, and I automatically opened my mouth to console her. Instead, she looked down.

"Hey... that's a cool jacket!" she said.

I followed her gaze. With the chaos that had been going on, I hadn't had time to realize that my leather bomber had stayed constant. Indeed, the jacket was looking completely unruffled, a cool juxtaposition compared to my current state of being, and was only marred where my fingers were apparently trying to puncture holes in the cloth. Relaxing my hand, I shook out the slight cramp that had formed before glancing up again.

"...you two. You're both in good health?" It sounded lamer than it had in my head.

Aerith smiled in a polite, ethereal way all the same. "We're fine," she replied. "Thank you for asking. I wish... I wish _I_ had gotten to see Mr. Strife, though."

At her hurt look, I began to feel somewhat guilty. _She loves him. I need to remember that. Find him, and bring him immediately back, that is what I will do without exception._

_And forget, absolutely, about those lovely blue eyes. Absolutely._

_Right._

_-. -. -. -_

_-. -. -. -_

I had to go for a title change... I'm not sure that it's allowed, but the title was temporary at best, and with 's occasionally silly formatting, mine doesn't show up. Anyway, hope you like the new chapter; thanks for the reviews! )


	3. Do I See

Do I See (Blue Eyes)

* * *

.- .- 

When I woke up—although, truthfully, I didn't recall falling asleep in the first place—it was to my great surprise that the reason for this was most likely the lion that was leaning over me, sniffing my face in slow, deadly huffs. My mind processed this in its due course, decided hope was extinct, and shut down. Even the soldier part put aside its weapon and raised its hands in eat-me defeat.

Something about the lion, though, seemed to be in coordination with the native life of Traverse Town—a certain block-ness that seemed unreal, with too large eyes and a curious coloring shift. Regardless of this, however, the beast still made a frightening sight. I had a vague, desperate hope that maybe it would associate the scar slashed over its eye with my own and choose to move away sufficiently far enough for me to get my gunblade and perhaps cast a spell or two, or at least "..." at it before I died.

There used to be a general rumor about me at the Garden, saying that I could go to sleep to instant action in moments. This is slightly untrue—rather, my soldier mind wakes up immediately, and the rest gradually follows in its wake. Those would be the things not necessary for survival: thoughts, opinions, memories that didn't involve the location of a gun or chokehold. So, a few moments passed before the remembrance of yesterday's time compression struck me, and a brief hope let within that perhaps this scene would change to involve far less teeth that it was currently containing.

"He doesn't think that you can understand him, so he says that he apologizes on Queen Kiara's behalf for frightening you, and that he may know where your friend is." It took me a minute to trace the oddly accented voice to my bedside table, where a large and, apparently, talking bird was sitting. An anthromorphic smile curved its beak and it shuffled its absurdly colored feathers before continuing. "A certain, ah, Cloud, I believe."

The rest of my memories had finally arisen, dragged sullenly from their sleep, and enough had that particular celestial heading on them that they were able to edge past other forefront ideas of the existence of translating birds and slaying lions.

"Where is he?" I asked. My classmates and peers had also circulated several rumors about my ability to stay on topic through any pandemonium. Zell used to joke that this was due to having the GF equipped nearly as often as Shiva, and Quistis would usually make up some valiant cause for this ability that made me feel hints of pride over it, but I kept the true reason to myself. It wasn't dullness, per say, but something that certainly looked and smelled like it.

"In the Serengeti, actually," the bird was saying. "One of the lionesses found him." It looked disgruntled as a blue hued hornbill could manage, and a brief thought over what Cloud's foot wide weapon of mass destruction could do fanged beasts only slightly longer than its length wandered through. "Aerith had requested that we watch the plains for him, so luckily Vitani knew what to expect. She asked that we find you and inform you of our information."

'Aerith asked, or the lioness?' I nearly questioned, but held my tongue lest I lost my reputation for silence. Instead, I nodded, and was assaulted with war cries of "Attack!" as maned animal inclined his head as well.

"Can you take me there?"

The lion growled, a most alarming sound, and the bird dipped his head down. "The king says no, but has been given the coordinates for you to enter in one of your, ah, 'Gummy Ships'."

I was beginning to detest the idiotic contraptions but nodded once more all the same, not bothering to ask why a lion knew mechanical planet coordinates, nor how the two had arrived in the first place. It seemed that these planets work by their own rules. I suppose that, to some of them, the idea of Garden flying would seem bizarre, but they would not find talking reptiles and a planet ruled by, apparently, a giant rodent very puzzling at all.

Cid was not difficult to find, watching people from his usual perch that overlooked the town, and was more than willing to lend me one of the flying ships. I politely declined one shaped like a Chocobo, turned down the absurdity of flying in a Cactuar, and let him know that I did not wish to have the ship named after myself, and no, one named off of my sword was not acceptable either. It seemed highly suspect that Yuffie may have gone through a crazed ship-building session at some point, and I was only surprised that _The Moogle_ was not yet constructed, as they were her favorite resident 'cute' things.

After some persuasion, he reluctantly stopped trying to have me fly _The Mickey Mouse _and parted with a gleaming white ship that even I could find attractive. To be sure, though, I cautiously asked him what name it had.

"It was Sora's last construction," he replied gruffly. "He never got a chance to give it a name. But, it has to have one before I can give it to you. What are you going to call it?"

I thought about it for a few minutes. "Laguna."

"That's a $# curious name." He took the cigarette out of his lips and peered at me, then shrugged. "It's your choice, though."

Yuffie would be the only one to find the name of the ship and know what it meant. She would also be one of the few people, even from home, that would realize it was a tribute to Selphie and not the man called my father. However, even she didn't know that the reason I never spoke of Laguna to her or anyone else here was that I could not figure grammatically how to. I had not seen him die, and therefore there was some estranged chance he might be alive. It was a slim and unrealistic hope, and I'm not even sure why I hoped for it, but something about him always seemed un-killable.

I took off in _The Laguna,_ having found the coordinates entered into the machine, next to a blurry golden picture labeled The Savanna. Based on the image, I supposed it was either a desert or a grassy planet, and dressed for both—leather pants, t-shirt, bomber jacket, and safety belts. Aerith was always in distress over my unchanging clothing choices, and only Sora agreed that belts were the way to go in any climate.

The ship landed me on my second assumption, and I stared at outstretched waist-high grass that spread out as far as I could see, wondering how I was supposed to find _anything_ in these militarily ideal conditions. If Cloud had been sitting three feet from me, as long as he was holding still I would only have a luck's chance of finding him. If lions were in high population here, it made the prospects even worse, as I'd have to be taking measures against them as well as searching for the man.

"What _are_ you?" a voice behind me said, and the reflexes I had trained for years to stop me from pulling out my blade on any child that snuck up behind me turned me around slowly. A lion cub was seated on the ground there, peering up at me with golden eyes. As I saw no accompanying oddly-shaded bird, I could only assume that once I was in a world, its logistics molded to fit me. However, this still did not give me any clue on how one was supposed to address young carnivores.

"I'm Squall—" I _still_ had to stop myself from adding a last name, rank, and status to that— "...are your parents around?"

"Parents, parents, parents," the cub said in a whiny voice, sitting down in what I took to be an annoyed manner. "Everyone's always just asking, 'Are your parents around? Shouldn't you be back listening to them?'"

Apparently the lion could understand me as well. I filed that away as useful information before kneeling down, hand just resting on the shaft of the gunblade handle in future preparation. "I would like to be the one listening to them. Could you point me in their direction? It's very important."

"Oh," it said, blinking. "Oh, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. I probably shouldn't do that."

I couldn't let this cub go, as I doubted that I'd find another very quickly. "Wait! I'm sure..." What had Rinoa always said about dealing with kids? 'They think they're adults. Treat them as such, and you may get information that you wouldn't have before.' That sounded more like Quistis, not Rinoa, but seeing as most of the adults I had met in the past were fairly stupid and foolhardy, it didn't seem to be bad advice no matter the source. "I'm sure you'd know what I need anyway, if you could pretend I'm not a stranger for a few more moments. Have you seen any... thing that looks like me here? He's blonde, though. I mean... he has a golden mane."

It watched me silently, then brightened and made a few bounces. "Yes! I mean, no. _I_ haven't seen him, but the hornbills say that he's staying with Rafiki."

An actual location was more than I had ever received before. Weeks of disappointing rumors, however, had removed my faith in any information—although Yuffie would point out that I started with very little belief to begin with—and I was only truly hopeful of finding another clue on his trail.

"Could you take me to this Rafiki?" I asked.

The cub fidgeted and nodded. "Yeah... I guess. You won't tell my parents, right? I'm not really supposed to go that far."

"I promise," I replied. I couldn't imagine it being a difficult deal to make.

It moved off and I followed, watching the area warily as we moved. The plains reminded me of an off-colored Esthar, but unlike my father's country, the lumbering creatures that moved through the grasses did not attack us. This would have provided a refreshing change from my homework, or even in the past in Traverse, but now it seemed there was no threat from anywhere. The worlds were absolutely at peace.

...not that this was a _bad_ thing, mind you. But I could not help being paranoid about everything that seemed too good to be true, or at least too boring.

The grass became shorter as we went, which put me more at ease, and the rare lone trees began increasing in number. Darkness that could have been forest lined one edge of the horizon, and more familiar blue-green prairie began springing up. Throughout all of this, my small guide kept up a constant talk that I kept one ear on as we walked.

"This whole area was burned out by a fire once or maybe twice but anyway that once was when King Kovu..." All of the children I had had the misfortune to be around lately seemed to never realize the value of silence, or of breathing. Why so many people were utterly obsessed over them left me completely in the dark. This involved the first thought that maybe my natural instincts regarding genders was perhaps to be preferred—the chance of unwanted children springing up was absolutely nil.

The cub went on about fires and rescues and other seemingly random topics before coming to a halt before one of the most massive trees I had ever witnessed. "Here's where Rafiki is, and I'd better go before he sees me and yells. Good luck finding your friend!" To my surprise, it twined briefly around my legs before scampering off, and I nearly had a kind thought about youngsters before I caught myself.

_I wonder what kind of person this Rafiki is. _I placed a hand on the hard wood plant, thinking to myself in the moody way that drove apparently everyone else insane. _And why he's in a tree. Knowing this place, he's probably a bird._

Hoisting myself onto one of the tall roots, I tilted my head back to gauge the situation, and there, staring back at me with evident shock and surprise, were two of the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen.

Had seen twice.

_With hair of the brightest gold, and eyes that glow faintly in the dark..._

"Cloud Strife, I presume," I said with the most absurd urge to begin giggling at the utter ridiculousness of all of it. I can't admit to ever having had the want to laugh like that, but it seemed oddly appropriate.

"I've heard your name is Squall," he replied, and he _did_ laugh: a laugh that was pitched too high and that echoed around me in a way that sounded entirely alien and ultimately familiar. As it had been excessively often, the scene around me shifted—the waving grass blades to crumbling stone, the massive tree to the gray pillars still etched in my memory after all these years. It had had a name, once, but during the wars and after it was known as Ultimecia's castle.

The throne had been moved down to the floor, now, and two figures were placed before it this time, one perched upon the platform seat and another crouched down beside it. I walked forward. The only hope I had, here in a place controlled by magic I couldn't hope to touch, was to hang onto the essential stubbornness I was famed for.

Seated on the throne was a woman, decked with flings of pearls and diamonds and framed by layers of white that, in typical sorceress fashion, went off in yards of imposing folds but still managed to come back and show off shapely legs up to the hip. _Soft,_ the image spoke to the part of me women had tried to rip out of my chest countless times before, _gentle. Weak. Protect. Serve._

My boot had already risen for another step towards her when my eyes followed the curve of one alabaster arm, off of the throne side and onto the person seated on the floor. The fierce magical pull to care for a sorceress snapped suddenly, and I watched Cloud in surprise. He was more real here than I had ever seen him be in all my traveling and I wondered if every hint and rumor I had heard was simply to lead me here. The thought should have infuriated me, but he was staring at the floor in an expression of such despair, the infamous sword dropped to the ground a few feet from his side, that I could only wonder what truly was happening here.

To make up for my stillness, the sorceress herself had risen and was approaching me in long, lurid steps. Her black hair was set to curve over her shoulders, brushing against the bottoms of a too-tight corset studded with silver. A few strands fell before her eyes, and my attention was drawn back once more as I looked into them. _Look at her. She needs protection. She needs your help. Serve a sorceress._

_To do so, first you have to kill her knight._

The smallest part of my conscience cried out, _You promised Aerith you would find him!_

_She never said he had to be alive._

_Protect this girl. Save her. The world will try to destroy her. Witches aren't bad, merely different. Sora said he beat Cloud in a matter of minutes, and that he watched him be taken down by Hades' mutt. He is not worthy of being a knight!_

A muffled cry snapped my attention once more and I glanced away from the sorceress just long enough to move out of the spell I kept falling into. Cloud had apparently reached for his sword and was now holding onto his hand with the other, catching the blood that dripped from it. I frowned in confusion and took a closer look at the numerous scratches on his arms, the tattered state of the wing that accompanied him, and, as stepped forward, the ankle tether that bound him to the floor.

"What is it you see?... Oh, the boy. I thought I might call him Griever," the sinuous voice before me said, as the sorceress tilted her head up, elegant lips parted.

"He isn't your knight?" My speech sounded drugged even to my ears, although the fact I could process this meant this sorceress was much weaker than she looked—not likely—or that something very peculiar was going on, possibly as a result from being around the strange world-group collection named 'Dysnee' for so long. Cloud raised his head at the sound of my voice and I could see the slight recognition flash in his sterling eyes, although he made no other movement.

"No," she replied, moving closer to me. I avoided her eyes, trying to figure out how to fully drive the muzzy feeling from my mind while the sorceress reached out, tracing her fingers up and down my arm. The touch was so light, so fragile—

I remembered Yuffie tossing her shiruken, up and down, up and down, and my mind clamped further. _I will not give in._

"But you do have a knight, don't you." It wasn't meant to be a question. Seifer and I had both developed a clear, if nearly entirely useless, ability to tell if a sorceress had someone to protect them. Seifer could use his after some practice to also discover if a woman was single or not, but I never saw the value in that. Besides, I knew too many females who were more likely to protect their lovers rather than be defended themselves.

She pouted and pressed nearer. "Well... yes. But he is... away right now. He left me here, all alone..."

A part of my thoughts screamed in vengeance against him, but I nearly had complete control now. "Then what do you want with Cloud?"

The sorceress scowled further. "_I _don't want anything to do with him. The weak, blonde type—" I could see Cloud scowl even while he watched uneasily as the woman leaned her length against me, although what caused his discomfort, I couldn't comprehend—"don't interest me. But, my knight requested that he be brought here, and to repay his faithful service, I agreed."

Something finally clicked in my mind, and I dared a look at her.

"Why do you want to call him Griever?"

She laughed and clapped her hands together. "Have you finally figured it out, Squall? I would have named him different, but Angelo was already taken."

The ex-SOLDIER made a sudden movement and my eyes jumped over to him. He was mouthing something to me frantically—had she made it so he couldn't speak?—and despite a lack of lip-reading abilities, a talent Quistis had attempted to drill into me fruitlessly for hours, I only had two typical reactions to choose from in the first place. The panic in his expression made me lean towards the first, and I drew my gunblade in a smooth arc, spinning away from _Rinoa, it had to be Rinoa, how had I not seen it before? Every movement, every word, had her name written all over it_ and turning to face the stretch of hall behind me.

A man was standing there, casually leaning against a sword that nearly topped his height. His silver hair touched virtually to the floor, a ridiculous trait in any kind of swordsman, but the alert eyes showed the coloring to be natural, not from age. He sounded much like Sora's outline of Riku, but with several feet and several more pounds of armor on him. When that line formed in my head, I realized that I was thinking of Sora for another reason, as well—he had known this man.  
.-

.-

_:: "Who was your biggest challenge at the games, then?" I had asked him. "You beat Yuffie and me easily enough. It wasn't Hades; I think _that_ only took you about three tries. Was it Hercules, maybe?"_

_Sora had laughed and shaken his head. "No, it wasn't Herc."_

_For the first time since he had spoken about Riku, the perpetual smile had dropped off of his face._

_"His name... is Sephiroth. I don't know what his last name is. Maybe he doesn't have one. The battle took two minutes."_

_I had given him a skeptical look. "You fought with me for ten, at least."_

_"Two minutes before I died," he had replied, voice quiet. "There was nothing for ages, and then I was back in Traverse Town, and Donald and Goofy had no memory of even going to Olympus."_

_"You... died. He _killed_ you?"_

_Sora had nodded. "Yeah. After I beat Ansem, I went back there. This time, I lasted an hour. When I came to again, I had to... had to watch Riku go through the d-door for a second time."_

_I did not ask about it again.::_

.- .-

The man—Sephiroth—nodded to me, nearly amiably, and then apparently tuned me out of his vision. He crossed the floor, a single feathered wing that reminded me of Rinoa _she was there, she was right there watching with me_ trailing behind him, and went to kneel by Cloud. Reaching out, Sephiroth placed his fingers on Cloud's chin, tilting it up with delicate gentleness as if he was going to kiss the man, which made me feel rather surely. Strife's eyes had dropped closed, as if he expected this as well, and I remembered that they had come from the same world, although nothing further than that. Perhaps, I thought glumly, they had been lovers there as well.

Then, to my vast surprise, Sephiroth stopped the caress and backhanded Cloud hard enough to send him sprawling, the blonde head smacking the ground with an audible thud. He grabbed a handful of spiky hair in a black-gloved hand and jerked him back up, voice cordially pleasant. "Don't do that again."

I moved forward, furious beyond any right I had to be, and was stopped by a light hand on my arm. Suddenly, other events seemed equally as pressing as hacking swordsmen to bits.

"Rinoa."

"Ah, so you did figure it out!" She slanted her head up towards me, face wreathed with smiles. "Sephy, would you like this one as well? See, he wears leather like you." Rinoa picked at my coat. "I _knew_ sending you this would be a good idea."

Sephiroth looked my direction and I was caught with a sudden urge to run, although overwhelming duty and fear of shame kept me rooted to the spot. He smiled fondly at Rinoa and shook his head, then walked off back down the hall to disappear in the room he had come from originally.

"I though Ultimecia gave me the coat," I said, trying to content myself with watching Cloud pick himself up from only the corner of my eye. _He seems to be fine._

"That was the point," Rinoa replied smugly.

"Why are you here?" My voice was void of emotion now, a sign Zell would say either meant I was hungry or about to snap. The hand holding the gunblade—I was loathe to think it was mine—was shaking somewhat, and I did my best to keep it still. "The last time I saw you, it was with a knife through your heart."

She tossed her hair, pouting in that way she always had. "Well, if you hadn't _noticed,_ those that give a hand to the heartless find that they don't really need hearts. Therefore, your particular parting gesture was, in fact, silly."

"What do you want with me? You have a knight. You know how I feel about you. So what is it?" It took all of my self control to not yell the last words and I took my finger off of the gunblade trigger lest I accidentally fire and remove my foot. Nothing about the situation was going positively whatsoever and it put me at a loss of what to do.

"Ah, yes... how you feel about me." Rinoa placed her fingers on my cheek, smiling warmly. "I just think we might have had a bit of a bad time there, but _surely_ you're over that by now?"

I watched her in disbelief. "Over it?"

"You still love me, Squall. After all, you promised that you'd always be there," she said, circling around and forcing me to turn to talk to her. I could sense someone staring at my back and the feeling was giving me constant chills of alarm.

"...." I replied. There was so much I could respond with, but I've never been skilled with words. Even if I knew exactly what to say, my lips would not allow the words to pass.

She wrapped her arms around me. _Delicate. Fragile. Protect. _"Please, Squall. Stay with me. I need you... not as a knight, but for _you._"

My mind was screaming at me to kill her, to throw her away, to perform any action at all, but it was already too late for that. The gunblade dropped to the floor, spinning away across the stone, and I returned her embrace involuntarily. A gasp from behind me registered as a curiosity, but her face was turned towards me, the lovely lips poised for a kiss, and I drew closer.

"_Squall!_" The cry jerked me out of the reverie and I jerked my head around to see Cloud, kneeling now, hands pressed against what I could now tell by the bloody cuts forming were wires thinned to the points of invisibility. Rinoa whimpered as if in pain, and the spell jerked me back to her. She simpered and stepped back, and gestured towards my fallen weapon.

"When he attacks the spell, it hurts me. Help me, Squall. Kill him, quickly, before Sephiroth comes back," the sorceress pleaded. "Protect me."

_No!_

I bent down, fingers tracing over the black leather handle of the gunblade before my hand tightened around it.

_No.__Please, Hyne, no._

_If you do this, you won't have to search any more. You can just tell Aerith that you were too late to save him _(to late to save him from yourself Rinoa what are you doing stop this please) _and it will be all over. None of this will have happened. You can return to Garden and be with Rinoa again._

Straightening, I turned and walked towards where Cloud was chained, steps slow and even.

_Yes. To serve the sorceress, I will do this. Even if I can't be her knight._

I drew back my hand, poised to strike, when my eyes met with his again. The clear blueness struck a memory inside me, and I could feel the recoiled wire-like snap of the spell breaking.

It was too late. My sword came down. I could only watch in horror as Strife's eyes closed, preparing for a strike I couldn't stop.

A second blade shot down an inch from his face, the sheer thinness and length speaking of the man from before. He wrenched me away from Cloud with evident anger, turning his weapon towards me threateningly.

"What are you doing?" his voice was cold and smooth—a salary man's, not someone to fear. The emotions behind his luminescent green eyes, however, ripped thoughts through me at the deepest levels. I ignored them and matched his stance.

"I don't care what happens to me here. Let Strife go. Aerith will hunt down the world for him if you don't, and I don't really think you want her on your trail."

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed. "Aerith is alive? Well, no matter. What interest do you have in the boy, anyway?" There was something there, a slight stressing of certain words, which struck with what Rinoa had been trying to do all night. _What are they getting at?_

"I was promised great funds to do this job," I bluffed. "I don't get paid until I return him alive, though, and I'm not going to let all of this work go to waste."

The swordsman smirked, and then laughed outright, sending chills through me once more. "Very well. What do _we_ get in return, then? Surely you don't expect me to be repaid with the 'good feelings' of making the 'right choice.'"

"Well, what do you want?" I asked, placing my hand on my hip in a more comfortable lean, allowing my stance to drop. It had fooled many others that thought no one could possibly fight completely off balance, and it often led people into a more relaxed, negotiable state.

He watched me for a long moment, and then bowed with a rather ironic smile. "I want what my sorceress bids me to."

Rinoa, of course, beamed at the attention, which she had been trying to shift onto herself for the last few minutes. "Perhaps a switch can be made," she replied, lowering and raising her lashes at me suggestively in a way that truly tested my ability to not take a swing at her. "This boy for, oh, that girl you mentioned before. Aerith."

Sephiroth, whose expression had been changing to increasingly annoyed, looked at her in sheer wonder and admiration at that statement. If Rinoa had been Quistis or even Ellone, I would have suspected that she had said it purely to get that reaction, but the Deiling Princess was often an enigma when it came to motives. She merely smiled back his direction, then mine. "Well?"

I tilted my head back in a pretense of indecisive thought, and then looked into her eyes once more. Allowing my expression to grow hypnotized before becoming warm, I nodded. "As you wish. When do you require her by?" Cloud was staring at me with an expression of shock that I'm sure held massive amounts of constrained fury at my words.

"Oh... next week should be enough time to capture her by, don't you think?" Rinoa waved her fingers at Strife, apparently undoing the spell, then picked up the chain shackling his wrists. She came over and pressed it into my fingers, all delicate curves and pouting lips again, which turned into a smile after a moment. "Buy me something nice with the reward money."

"Anything for you," I replied, nearly choking on the words and having to struggle to keep them from being pronounced as sarcastically as I could manage. Before they could change their mind, I activated the spell to teleport us to the Gummy ship. Not until we were deep in the clutches of space did I feel safe enough to look over at the man, who had rode with me in silence until then.

Fishing around in the toolbox for a specific blade, I glanced in his direction. "Can you speak now?"

"I..." Cloud cleared his throat, and then nodded. "Apparently so. Why... why did you agree to trade me for Aerith?" Instead of the furious demand I expected, his voice was soft and hesitant as he let me slice the bangles off of his wrist. Moogle steel was worth every damn crystal I had to search for to buy it.

I shrugged and tossed the chains to the side. "First, I knew she would agree to such a trade in an instant. I also have complete faith in her powers, which are impressive," I replied. Cloud was staring at me, somewhat suspiciously, and I locked gaze with him again. Apparently, the message was received, as he nodded and began rubbing his wrists. I had no intentions whatsoever of delivering Aerith to anyone, but I was fully aware of Sorceress ability to listen in on conversations they wanted to. There was no reason to doubt that Strife also knew this, if he had been with Rinoa for as long as I suspected.

We did not speak again on the ride, although Cloud seemed as if he might start to several times—he never went through with it, however. I landed the ship at Cid's dock and opened the door to disembark. As we stepped out, I realized that everything was done, now. I had found Cloud and delivered him alive.

It was over.

.- .-

.- .-

* * *

A/N: ...but this story isn't! After this, POV is getting switched, though. 

Sorry about the total lateness of this chapter (please blame my recent acquiring of KH:CoM. If you don't have it, it's filled with amazing slashy goodness. Do go get it.) To make up for it, I made this one really long. Please enjoy and supply me with any feedback you may have—it's what keeps me writing!

Also, preemptive apologies for any spelling/language mistakes.


	4. Singing A Song

_Aerith had looked radiantly stunning as always in her usual pink and red getup and Yuffie hadn't changed a bit either--she was still the hyperactive twat that she had been back home. Cid barked at me in a surly manner but was grinning all the same, and there stood the remains of all I had ever known or cared for. Everyone else was gone. I would again never be subjected to Barrett's strange analogies or Red's deflated groan of amusement as our resident Chocobo tried for the millionth time to exit the stable via quantum tunneling as he entered. Watching them, I realized I could not remember which Turk was which, or the color of Cait Sith. At that moment I couldn't have identified Tifa's laugh from anyone else's._

_Thinking of Tifa made me wince and drew my gaze up from Aerith's embrace. A man I hadn't noticed before was standing in the doorway, pointedly not watching us. His profile, outlined in the light, was striking in a way I had not seen since... well, perhaps Rufus, or Reno--or was it Rude?--but this one could have outshone the sun. His eyes held Sephiroth's coldness and faint lines of pain were creased around his mouth, but the effect was ruined by plump cheeks and hair that I knew from experience would never stay out of his line of vision._

_Then he looked my way._

_Starting existence as I did, mind and body confused by the mako and timestream and war, there were some facts of life I never truly learned. But meeting his gaze, I think I learned a few more._

_I think that I could stand seeing those eyes forever._

_I think..._

. . ._  
_

"...I think you killed him."

"hE is StIlL aliVe, mAdaM."

"Then why hasn't he moved? He's been here three hours now, and I don't even think he's been breathing."

"I assure you that he is, my lady. He's always been exceptional at this."

If I hadn't been awake before, I was certainly conscious now. That voice had been hardwired into my brain years ago to provoke an instant reaction of panic and hatred, and to hear it again after so long made my sword hand itch for action. I had not been the one to lay the finishing blow on Sephiroth, but I had seen him die. Perhaps it was the world's idea of a joke that, in bringing Aerith back, _he_ was to be returned as well.

Cold fingers placed themselves on my chest and began rolling in light circles, and, overcome with disgust, I found that I could not keep up my unconscious act any longer. I grabbed his wrist and sat up, trying to take in the entire situation with my eyes before it could turn against me.

A woman dressed in all white, who reminded me somewhat of Tifa, stood to one side of the cold marble platform I was laying on. Sephiroth, of course, was on the other, and was watching me in sickening amusement. What was even more noticeable than them, however, was the crawling darkness that covered every inch of the massive room, marred only with the sparks of glowing eyes and crimson patterns. Heartless.

_Sora said the Heartless were locked away, though. That they were all gone._

_...it doesn't take too much imagination to guess _where_ they might have been left._

Before he could get the wrong idea, I dropped Sephiroth's wrist, trying to ignore the part of me that screamed to reach the sword I could see laying a few feet away and dispatch him. "What am I doing here!" I demanded.

"Resting," the lady in white said with a sweet smile. "Even with your mako enhancements, the rather hasty spell we had to use to bring you here should make you feel a bit queasy in a few minutes." The speech sounded odd, nearly memorized, as if she wasn't used to saying things like that. "Please lay back down."

"That wasn't what I asked," I returned with a growl. "Why aren't I in Traverse Town?"

"You're needed here." Sephiroth's silky tone made the words in my head stop screaming for battle and start just screaming in general. "There's a machine in this place that can only be run by mako-enhanced magic users. I, however, do not appear to be compatible with it, so the obvious choice is you."

_BS, _I thought. _How many machines come with a label saying "Please insert only those with mako poisoning"? I don't know who the girl is, but the only reason I'm here is because you want to use me again._

"How are you alive?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. All of these events at once were fraying my nerves, no matter how "mako-enhanced" they might be.

The silver-haired warrior merely laughed. "Another time, Strife. Now, my lady, shall we be going?" She gave a simpering smile and nodded, wrapping her arms around one of his leather-clad ones, and then looked back to me.

"Oh... I'm afraid that the doors don't open." The lady extended one arm, motioning towards the massive floor-to-ceiling gates at the far end of the colossal room. "Please don't try to use them to escape. The Heartless may get angry at you," she ended, giving a light, nearly joyful laugh of her own before opening a dark-fire portal, which she and Sephiroth disappeared through.

The Heartless came over, attracted by the magic, and I held very still until they returned to their positions away from the platform I was on. Slowly, I leaned over to pick up my fallen sword, and, as no black ball of teeth pounced immediately towards me, I slid off as well. From this perspective I saw that I had taken to be a random granite slab was actually an ornately designed dais-an altar, apparently. It somehow did not lend much towards improving my mood.

Glancing down, a silver flash caught my attention, which was quickly identified as one of the buttons off of Sephiroth's clothing. I picked it up out of curiosity, quashing the urge to throw it as hard as possible into the crowd for fear of retaliation I most likely could not stop. Anything of _his_ left a marred, greasy feeling in my hands and set my mind spinning, but I didn't drop it. It reminded me of Materia, if anything... even though I knew this world did not contain the swirling orbs of my own, and even with the emotions the silver drew, I pocketed it and walked on.

Luckily, the beasts around me stuck towards the walls, generally leaving the center clear, and any that were in my path moved out of my way quickly. _If all they know of humans is Sephiroth and that key blade-copying friend of Sora's, then I can understand why. At least I don't have to deal with them. I've had enough fighting._

The walls and floors were too dark to make out, and when I reached down to touch the surface I was treading on, I felt... nothing. The experience unnerved me somewhat, and I decided to ignore it as long as my weight was being supported. It seemed to work for the Heartless, so it would work for me. I remembered the look in Aerith's eyes as I was ripped away from her, the pain there as my mere existence hurt her again, and I figured that I was no different from the black beasts anyway.

The battle hum in my mind went off through my thoughts and I jerked to focus, noting that the aforementioned creatures were gathering much more closely now, apparently reassured by my failure to attack them. These were not the scurrying ant-like creatures I was used to dealing with in the arena but slinking, toothy types that looked much more dangerous. They would be easy to dispatch, of course, but the growing number was worrying. I pulled out my sword, waiting for battle.

However, the attack I was expecting didn't occur. The beasts scurried off as quickly as they had come, casting what I would supposed to be terrified glances behind me. _A Behemoth,_ I assumed, thinking of Sora's book of Heartless. _Or... Sephiroth._ There was no place to run, and even though in the old days I would have laughed at the idea of fleeing from a fight, I ached at the loss of such an exit now. I turned around.

"Hello," said the two-foot-tall mouse standing there, and I was on the ground before I realized it, staring into wide, concerned eyes. "Are you alright there?" it asked. "Maybe you should sit for a bit," and then it made a noise a bit like "nuh-yuck" that apparently stood for laughter. I didn't respond. Really, in conversations, I rarely ever responded verbally, but I absolutely refused to speak to a creature bearing eyes the size of my hand and dressed like a monk.

It winked at me and then dashed away faster than even my eyes could catch, leaving me laying on the insubstantial ground and wondering if I was hallucinating. It wouldn't have been the first time, for sure. Apparently I wasn't, however, as the Heartless stayed far, far away, seemingly as disturbed as I was.

Their absence showed me the room, and there...

...there was the machine they had spoken of. It wasn't a guess; there was something about the structure that, looking at it, made it obvious. The Heartless avoided that just as clearly as they did the mouse, and my mind screamed to join them even as my feet moved closer. My body knew this machine was built for me, like the buster sword fit my hand, like I could drive a motorcycle while fighting. My mind agreed that perhaps Sephiroth hadn't been lying before, but that complying with his wishes was not the brightest idea. A part of me that I had once known as Zack pointed out in the background that magic existed in this world and that this was obviously a spell, but the overpowering force of the machine drowned it out.

I set my hands on the keys, punching in the right combinations to make it come alive, the movements coming by instinct and magic and simply pure drive. For a moment, I wondered what exactly the thing _did—_it didn't feel like a weapon, didn't look like a torture device—but, luckily, whatever was controlling me also knew that answer. The machine could see things, possibly with a capitol S; the past, present, and, to a limited extent, the future. That's why it wanted those with the eyes for it for operation.

_What am I supposed to be seeing with it?_ I tried thinking, wondering if that would get a response as well. The answer echoed in my head.

_"Prey."_

_What kind?_ Somehow, I doubt its aim was Heartless hunting.

_"Those that can be won to this side. Those that can be used against us. Those that the master desires."_

_Master? That lady in white… or Sephiroth?_

I could have sworn the machine snorted. _"She is powerful, true, but… who do you think?"_

_Who am I supposed to be looking for?_

_"Those that can be won—"_

_Who _specifically? Had I been anyone else, I would have been bothered to talk mentally to a giant piece of metal I was being magically controlled to use, but I doubted my life could be stranger as it was.

_"So far, they have only found one. Him."_

And on the screen, lovely and shirtless in sleep, was the man from the doorway. I watched as he let out a breath and rolled to his side, noting the deep scars and also, in a way, their rarity. _What does Sephiroth want with him?_ I did not doubt the man could be used against them. Even sleeping, he screamed fighter.

_"I don't question, but if I did, I would be asking "What do you think?" again."_

_Sorry. Do you have a name?_

_"Yes. It's Ansem. But don't let anyone know. And don't freak out, please. I built this machine, and when I saw that my body was being consumed by darkness, I spent my last few minutes as a free being putting my soul in here."_

From Sora's descriptions, his greatest nemesis didn't seem to be the type to have a sense of humor. Then again, I never had been all that comfortable with jokes. The man on the screen let out a sigh, and I had to look away.

_What am I supposed to do with this machine? _Besides_ finding people._

_"You're supposed to watch them for weaknesses and so forth. That's what the master said, at least. Myself… well, I tend to check in around shower time. Those girls…"_

I glared at the machine, feeling a headache coming on. _Don't._

_"His shower time is in a few hours, if you're interested."_

_I'm _not.

This was a ridiculous conversation, but I never have been great at conversation changes. A bellow in the distance brought at least something to mind.

_Why do the Heartless stay away from you?_

_"Because you are slightly wrong about me not being a weapon. I can defend myself, and you while you're over here."_

_I don't need a defender._

_"So says the one who has been staring at a projection and completely ignoring the world around him."_

I think…

….I needed a drink.

* * *

A/n: A post! I felt the need to post something today, so, here it is, sooner relatively than I expected. And, sorry about Ansem. I kind of went to town. 

If you read this, can someone please tell me what the capitolization rules on Mako is? I'm not quite clear if it's a proper noun (Mako) or abbrev. (MAKO) or not (mako). Thanks!

Also, sorry about the massively slow updates. They'll be better now that I have time to write. Thanks a TON for the great reviews, esp. Major Misprint who surprised me back into writing this, even though I'm sure they don't know it :) More soon!


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